Any web sites mentioned below are only a sampling of the many available online. WHOA-KTD
does not have any affiliation with these web sites and use them only as examples.
Select a gender-neutral or generic username, email address, etc. Avoid anything cute, sexual, or
overtly feminine. Also do not select a username related to where you live, what school you go to
(such as a school or team name), your age or your hobby or favorite sport. Child predators look for
ways to make you think they know you or like the same things you like, so be careful.
Some good examples of words to avoid are girl, kitty, sweet, cute, sexy, or hot.
When selecting a username or email address, DO NOT use your real first or last name. Your first name
is probably not gender-neutral, and you're also making it too easy for people to find out information on you.
Keep your primary email address private.
Use your primary email address ONLY for people you know and trust.
Get a free email account and use that for all your other online activity. Make sure you select a
gender-neutral or generic username that is nothing like anything you've had before. There are many,
many free email providers, such as Hotmail, Juno, Yahoo! and Hushmail. Do a search using your favorite
search engine and choose the email provider that best suits your own needs. You may need to try out some
before you find one you like.
Purchase a well-known brand of virus scanner and firewall and make sure you know how to use them.
Make sure it auto-updates the virus definitions, scans incoming and outgoing email, and runs at least
once a week. A good one will be able to do this all automatically. An out-of-date virus scanner and
firewall are just as bad as having none.
Don't open email attachments from people that you don't know or don't trust.
Even if you do know them, do not open it unless you were expecting it. Many viruses prey on other
people's online address books to make a virus e-mail look like it came from them, then will infect your computer.
A harasser can also send you a program that could make your computer open to him if you launch the program.
Always scan any attachments (or set your antivirus to automatically scan incoming attachments), even
if you are expecting it. It's wise to always be careful online.
Avoid running any email attachments that have .exe, .pif, or .scr in them, unless you know the person
sending it to you *and* they've told you they're sending it. Viruses are most often hidden in these types of files.
Again, always scan any attachments (or set your antivirus to automatically scan incoming attachments),
even if you are expecting it.
Don't give out information simply because it is requested. Web sites sometimes ask you to give them
your full name, date of birth, address, phone number, email address, etc. when you might just want to read
messages on a discussion forum. Give as little information as possible, then hit the "submit" button and see
what information you really need to provide to get that account.
If some information is required that shouldn't be, go elsewhere. You can also put false information into
these sites, especially if you don't plan to return in the future. Be especially careful of "profiles"
and "directory listings" for instant messaging programs or web sites such as free e-mail services, blogs,
journals, etc. You don't want too much information to get into the wrong hands.
Block or ignore unwanted users.Whether you are in a chat room or using IM, you should always check out
what options/preferences are available to you and take advantage of the "Block all users except those on
my buddy list" or adding unwanted usernames to an Ignore list in chat. If anyone bothers you and won't go
away, put them on block or ignore, even if it feels rude! Your comfort level is more important than
their feelings.
Be very careful of chat rooms or chat programs that don't give you the ability to block or ignore
unwanted messages or users. You're best avoiding these kinds of rooms. There are literally hundreds
of others out there that will give you the security you need.
Don't allow others to draw you into conflict. Although your normal reaction would be to defend yourself,
it could be the worst thing you could do, because that's what the other person wants - a reaction from you.
It's safer to ignore them and keep yourself out of the argument. This is hard to do at times, but even if you
have to either sit on your hands or go somewhere else online, it could save you a lot of grief in the future.
When you respond to a personal attack in any way, you're letting the attacker know that he/she has
succeeded in upsetting you and in most cases, this only encourages them to continue. When he/she realizes
that he/she isn't getting a reaction from you, in most cases they'll move on to find an easier target.
Remeber the old saying, "Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you!"
If someone continues to harass you in a public message forum or chat room, the best thing to do is *leave*.
You may feel that you're letting the person win, but it's better for you mentally and emotionally to get
away from someone that is attacking you. After a few days or weeks, you can go back, but we advise you get
a new username and "lurk" before taking part again. Make sure the harasser is gone. If they are, have fun!
If they aren't, there are plenty of other places online to take part in. Try to find a message board, group,
chat room, etc that is moderated. Those types of places are good at kicking out potential harassers and
trolls looking to cause trouble.
If someone says things that make you uncomfortable, firmly tell them to stop. If they don't respect
your request, block them. If they're making you nervous, there's no reason to continue communications with
them. If they continue to contact you, report them to their ISP. We will have instructions on how to do this.
If someone always seems to be changing stories or saying one thing that's different from something they've
said before, be extremely careful. A lot of predators and harassers will tell stories to trick you into
trusting them, but because they're making up things, they can slip up. These are clues that something is
wrong. For example, you might be talking to a boy who's profile says he's 14. After a little while, he
tells you that it's wrong, he's really 19. A few weeks later, he may tell you that he's really 25, but
he likes to hang out with people that are 19. Stop talking to people that lie about themselves like this...
they are up to no good.
Lurk in a new forum to learn how things are run. Read mailing list or discussion board postings for a
week or more without responding or posting anything yourself. In chat rooms, just sit quietly for 10-30
minutes to see if the discussions that are going on are truly something in which you wish to engage.
Don't respond to private messages in that time, either.
In fact, change your preferences so that private messages are blocked. We'll have instructions here soon.
By doing this, you may see that the discussions aren't what you're looking for or you may get an idea
of the personalities of the different people that are there.
If a place becomes stressful, leave it. There are many upsetting things we cannot avoid easily in our
lives, so why put up with those we can get away from? If someone is being rude in a chat room or on a
discussion board, there are countless others that are likely to be more pleasant. If another visitor to
a chat room or forum is harassing you and the forum owner/moderator refuses to take decisive action,
why would you want to be there? Don't allow yourself to get tied up in battles. If you have friends
in the chat room or message board, find another way to chat or communicate with them. You could even
see about finding a new place for all of you to meet up instead!
When you change, really change! If you need to change your username or email address to break off
contact with a harasser, using a variation on your real name or anything you've used in the past leaves
tracks allowing the harasser to find you again fairly easily. If you've always been "Kitty" and you change
your handle to "Cat," you haven't really changed. Assume that the harasser knows your hobbies or interests.
For instance, perhaps you like to play Scrabble. If he's really obsessed or simply has too much time on his
hands, he's likely to poke around in different Scrabble-related message boards and chat rooms looking for
feline names to see if he can find you again.
Watch what you "say" online. When you do participate online, be careful--only type what you
would say to someone's face. If you wouldn't say it to a stranger standing next to you in an elevator, why would you
"say" it online? This goes for photos as well. If you wouldn't want your photo being shown all over the
world in public, think twice about sending it to someone. It is too easy to use a graphics program to alter
a photo to look lewd or pornographic, so be very careful.
Ego Surf. Put your first name and last name in quotes in a search engine such as Yahoo!, Google or
Dogpile and see if there are any results that are about you. The reason you put them in quotes is to
refine the search to only your name. If you just put your first and last name in a search engine, such
as Jayne Hitchcock, you'll get too many results that have all the Jayne's, all the Hitchcock's and all
the Jayne Hitchcock's. Putting your name in quotes like this "Jayne Hitchcock" means you'll only get
results that have the full name in them. You just might be surprised at what you find.
Never give your password to anyone. Your ISP will never, ever ask you for your password while you are
online or via email. In fact, they shouldn't ever contact you to ask you for your password, period. They
can get it from their own records, if they really need it for any reason. If you call them for support,
there are a few rather rare instances in which the support person might ask you for your password - but
you called them, right? So you know it's really a support person from your ISP that you're talking to.
There's no reason for anyone to ever contact you to ask for your password.
Some online quizzes, polls, and memes (for online blogs or message forums) might request your password
for an account. Do not ever give your password to these third-parties! While they might appear legitimate,
such as calculating statistics for your online blog, you're risking your account security. Only put your
login and password into the website that it belongs to, and only if you go there intentionally, and not
through an email link. In fact, if you get an e-mail from someplace claiming to be a quiz, your blog site
owner, etc., report them to that web site.
Even if an email looks real, don't enter account or personal information into an email that's requesting
it, or on a website that you get to after clicking on a link inside an email. These emails are fake and
can easily be created to look like they came from the real site (such as EBay or PayPal). If you think
that it might be real and want to verify it, go to the website by typing it in to the address bar, *then*
entering the information. The links in the email are to fake sites that are made to look like the real
thing, only to trick you into giving the information. See more about this on
"Spams and Scams!"
Never, ever give out personal information - your real name, address, or phone number online without
making sure it's a legitimate (real) web site that absolutely needs this information. How do you do this?
Ask your parents or older sister or brother, uncle, aunt, grandparents, etc or another adult you trust.
They'll be please you asked them for help.
Be very cautious about putting any photos of yourself online anywhere, especially in profiles, or
allowing anyone else (relatives, schools, dance academies, sports associations) to publish any photos.
Some stalkers become obsessed because of an image. A random email address or screen name is much less
attractive to most obsessive personalities than a photograph. Someone may also take your photo and
deface it or alter it with crude images to upset you or harass you.
If you have any tips you'd like to see added here, please send them to us
